FDA Will Ban Convenience Stores to Sell E-cigs

FDA crackdown on e-cigs could shift sales away from convenience stores, restricting them to vape shops. Online sales also targeted.

A pointed claim made by the Food and Drug Administration commissioner about how teenagers obtain electronic cigarettes has served as a shot-across-the-bow to convenience stores.

Scott Gottlieb was interviewed Friday on cable business channel CNBC about the FDA’s efforts to tighten retail marketing and sale restrictions on e-cigs with top-selling Juul drawing the main focus.

Gottlieb told CNBC that in the past year, there has been a 77 percent increase in high school students’ use of e-cigs based on a small sample size nationally.

Gottlieb has cited e-cigs’ potential to serve as a reduced-risk product for adult smokers.

However, he has made it clear in recent months the FDA will limit the availability of flavored e-cigs if necessary to curtail teenage consumption.

To that point, Gottlieb said the FDA is considering the sale of e-cigs being limited to vape shops, and taken out of convenience stores.

“This starts with the actions we’re taking … to crack down on retail sales of e-cigarettes to minors,” Gottlieb said. “A lot of the sales we’ve seen to minors are happening in the brick-and-mortar stores, the convenience stores.”

“It’s likely that we will put more restrictions on selling e-cigs online, if we allow them to remain online,” Gottlieb said. “We could ban online sales until regulations are in place.

“Most of these products are sold through brick and mortar stores. We’re looking at what can be sold in brick-and-mortar stores and what flavors should be sold in regular stores, whether 7-11, a truck stop or a gas station.

“Or whether, if there are flavored e-cigs on the market, they should be confined to adult-only vaping shops, which generally do a better job of checking ID,” he said.

If the convenience store will be banned to sell e-cigs, will it be a good chance for vape shops to have more sales? Share us your idea in the comments.

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